By Aliza Abrams, Assistant Director, Department of Service Learning and Experiential Education at the Center for the Jewish Future, Yeshiva University
About three weeks ago, I returned from Kharkov Ukraine where I was leading a short-term service mission on behalf of Yeshiva University in partnership with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). While on the ground we learned about the welfare and services provided for those in need as well as did hands on service work within the communities of Kharkov and Poltova. A few of the projects included home visits to elderly members of the community, delivering food packages to low income families as well as doing repairs in a Jewish school and a youth center. Every person we interacted with thanked us for coming and for volunteering, and yet the students and I kept finding ourselves thanking them for allowing us into their lives to help them.
While I was in Ukraine we had seven other student groups volunteering and learning in Israel on three different missions; Mexico and Nicaragua with American Jewish World Service and all across America on two additional missions.
This was the seventh year we’ve run winter missions, and while I was preparing for the missions I realized how far Yeshiva University has come in the world of social justice, service and being active members of the global community. When I was in college, one only went on an emergency mission to Israel if there was a war going on, all of the missions were reactionary. Now at YU we are active members in the field of social justice, and we are proactive in designing our winter missions to educate students about communities that are often overlooked or underserviced. Two of our Israel missions focused on the concept of tzedek and tzedaka, justice and charity. Students explored the complexity between maintaining a society based on charity and justice in a Jewish democratic state through site visits, volunteering, and sessions with experts in the field. Through the exploration of the relationship between charity, justice and how the two co-exist in Israeli society, law, and the general community, students were moved to become significantly more involved in social justice related activities.
This is the exact reason why we run these missions. In exposing students to environments, communities, and causes that they’ve never been exposed to before, their eyes are opened and their souls are ignited. They return to campus energized and inspired to become involved in different causes. To me this has become a lesson for life, watching the change that happens within our students reminds me that too often we find ourselves simply reacting to that which is going on around us. We need to constantly be challenging ourselves and pushing our own boundaries to ensure we are thinking creatively about the impact we want to make in all of the projects and causes we are working on, as this will ensure our having a proactive approach to life and the work we are all so committed to doing.
